As most of you know, I am a teacher aide working with special needs kids at a local high school. The kids I work with have been planting a garden. It helps with their social skills, encourages them to work together, develops their coordination and gives them valuable skills for life as well. The garden is quite large and very productive! We had taken over a small area of the horticulture plot, but the garden grew bigger than planned and we have taken over more land! It currently has lettuces, silver beet, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, herbs of all sorts and rhubarb. We are ready to plant carrots, broad beans, mesculin mix, more herbs, spring onions and capsicum. In the pipeline are lemon and lime trees. The Food Technology dept pays for all our seeds/seedlings and they regularly harvest the goodies. The kids also get to take produce home, and as well, we will harvest some and teach them to make soups etc. It is a wonderful thing to see these kids out in the garden working really hard and enjoying it, to boot. I will get some photos tomorrow, so you can see how fab it is. I am so proud of these teenagers who are accomplishing great things, despite their disabilities!
Getting dirt under your nails has to be a right of passage I think. Good on you guys for teaching them the skills. I used to work for a bloke that owned a farm supply business, he was also a member of Rotary. He organised a free to kids give away that involved compost/seeds tools etc and a mentor (Rotary supplied) to children. They were actually given everything they needed to make a garden, they were monitored over a period of 3 months and wow did they work! Was a really cool thing to be associated with.
Wow this will be doing great things for the kids, such a social event gardening (when done right) and an awesome scence of achievment, this is also why I got in to it when going through tough times and It helps me too. Good on you for giving them the opportunity to get stuck in , Cant wait to see the garden when you post the photos!!
Top marks YT! Skills the younger generation lack or even desire to have these days, great to see folks getting out there and doing it. I am sure you will have noticed, the feeling one gets when pulling your own produce you've grown yourself and then reaping the rewards, even if the one mutant capsi I got was a mutant, I still threw em into the stir fry and ate em
I forgot the photos....grrrr!
Still haven't remembered those photsos. We have a worm farm at school now, and today I taught our special needs kids the Bokachi compost system...they are fighting about who is going to look after it! I love their enthusiasm......and am pretty impressed by teir knowledge, just quietly!
sounds like they know more than me! (seriously) glad to hear the project is going well for all involved,(would love to grow rhubarb myswelf I love rhubarb crumble!) still keen to see your photos if you get a chance! keep well!
I have to remember to get my boss to email them to me...I don't have a school email addy..she is stuck in Chch because of the snow..... They are actually quite knowledgeable, I'm impressed with how much they have learned and how far they have come.
